KMAC Grill and its Black Boxes of Indulgence

NOSA: If you've been on Admiralty Way recently, you've probably noticed the new car wash that popped up across the street from the Adebayo Doherty intersection. The one with the "container" buildings and whatnot. Well, in there, you'll find one of the better BBQs in Lagos.

The menu at KMAC Grill is pretty simple, you have four options - Mini Black Box (Party Special), Mini Black Box, Maxi Black Box, Jumbo Black Box. Technically, there are only three options because the Party Special is only available for...parties, i.e. minimum order quantity is twenty.

Each box is like variety pack for BBQ and as you go up in size, the contents become more ostentatious. In typical EDL fashion, we went for the biggest of the lot - the Jumbo Black Box. We did it so you don’t have to. Or in this case, so you have to.

FOLLY: You actually have to. The Jumbo Black Box is everything you want in a party platter. I wish we had checked out the place a couple weekends earlier so I could have ordered these as party platters for my birthday.

NOSA: In the Jumbo Black Box, you get:

1 cheeseburger

5 chicken pieces

5 turkey pieces

5 sausages

5 corn cobs

2 camb/pork chops

2 spicy grilled Prawns

Sweet Potato or Yam Chips

Pepper sauce + ketchup

FOLLY: The box itself that the food is presented in is very good quality. To be honest, it's an actual gift box, the type you use to package a gift to someone that you actually care about.

NOSA: A little breakdown of the box's contents:

PORK CHOPS

FOLLY: For me hands down the best meat in the box. First of all, it was a good cut for grilling (a rib chop). It was very tender and had just the right meat to fat ratio.

NOSA: The pork chops were so tender and I honestly didn’t expect it. I mean, it’s a grill in the middle of a car wash. If you're like me you might not ordinarily expect good things there.

FOLLY: The fatty edge on the outer edge of the chop might have been my favourite part. The pork chops were dry rubbed and the flavour came all the way through. You could see that they were totally and completely coated because a lot of the dried herbs and spices were visible on the meat.

CORN

FOLLY: My next favourite thing in the box was the corn. It was moderately flavoured but I loved how liberally grease was applied because I really hate dry corn. It was also grilled direct so it had a lot of that smoky, grilled, and charred flavour.

CHICKEN

FOLLY: Honestly and truly, I really think there's a tie between the sweet potato and the chicken but I'll let the chicken have this one because this is the first piece of chicken I've truly enjoyed in over six weeks.

(Aside: I think I want to become pescetarian but let's check back on that in a month or two.)

NOSA: Like Folly, I haven’t been big on chicken for a while, but this got me out of my funk for a brief minute. So yeah, it’s good enough.

FOLLY: The chicken was both smoked and grilled. The grilling seared it, but the smoking gave it that classic taste and helped the meat pull apart for easily.

SWEET POTATO

FOLLY: The "home fries" size of this was wonderful - had me hating regular fries for a second. The technique of crispy edge and soft inside needs to be appluaded. Likewise, the spice blend that the fries were dusted in as well as the mustard/mayo drizzle deserve celebrations.

(Ed. Note: Half expected an "accolades" joke here)

PRAWN

FOLLY: I really wanted to like the prawn but I swear underneath the shell tasted like the sea. Or maybe because we were seated by the waterside and the smell of the sea was in my face? Either way, I honestly struggled to enjoy this.

SAUSAGE

FOLLY: Now, we're officially getting to the back benchers and generally the members of the class that drag the average down. Why can't we have actual sausages over franks?

NOSA: I will keep asking this whenever I see frankfurters, why don’t more Nigerian spots use Satis if imported sausages are too expensive?

FOLLY: Please, Lagos establishments take note.

TURKEY

FOLLY: Everything they did to the chicken is what should have been done to the turkey. It was so hard to bite into, and tasted like it was just fried without any particular concern for texture or taste.

NOSA: I’m not the biggest turkey fan and this didn’t really change my stance. They did taste great in tacos the day after so maybe there was a little redemption.

CHEESEBURGER

NOSA: Very very bad.

FOLLY: Out of respect to everything else in the Jumbo Grill Box, and especially speaking on behalf of the pork chops, corn, and the chicken I think we should have the option to leave out the burger when ordering.

NOSA: They probably know this one shouldn't be in the box so they give you just one of it, unlike the other items in the box. KMAC just needs to sub this out for a basic bread roll.

FOLLY: You can tell that KMAC's speciality is grilling because everything with the exception of the turkey was solid and the grill masters just don't quite have the burger finesse..yet and I hate that it's dragging down the curve. I had so many issues with it from the patty tasting like it was grilled from frozen, wet cucumbers in between the bun and the patty, the cheese wasn't melted, and the over dressing.

NOSA: The burger tasted like a Mr. Biggs burger.

POSTSCRIPT

FOLLY: Again with the exception of the burger, I wouldn't rate anything I had less than an 8/10. If you're having a party, allow the small chops and get this instead. The seating area isn't much so you're better off taking your order to go.

NOSA: I don't think they want you to sit in.

FOLLY: Oh, very important to call in advance the wait time for this is 45 minutes to 1 hour.